Cancer Plan (Hansard, 12 April 2002)

§ Dr. Murrison
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average wait was for urgent GP referral to treatment for(a) children's cancers, (b) testicular cancers, (c) acute leukaemia, (d) breast cancers and (e) all cancers at the latest date for which figures are available. [45783]
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§ Yvette Cooper
We do not currently hold data on waiting times from urgent general practitioner (GP) referral to treatment for all cancer patients. Standards of a maximum wait of one month from diagnosis to first treatment for breast cancer and one month from urgent GP referral to treatment for children's and testicular cancers and acute leukaemia came into effect at the end of December 2001. Central monitoring of these standards began on 1 January 2002 and data will be published on a quarterly basis. Data collection on waiting times to treatment for other tumour types will be introduced as we rollout the Cancer Plan waiting times targets.

§ Dr. Murrison
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress he has made in developing services to improve genetic risk assessment for cancer under the Cancer Plan. [45775]

§ Yvette Cooper
In April 2001, the Secretary of State announced a £30 million package of investment in genetic services pver the next three years. Part of this money has been allocated to boost capacity in counselling and testing genetic services around the regions.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellent (NICE) are developing a clinical guideline on the classification of risk in, and management of, patients presenting with a familial risk of breast cancer.
The National Screening Committee (NSC) organised three workshops in autumn 2000 to investigate population genetic screening for colorectal cancer, breast and ovarian cancer and heritable thrombophilia. The outcomes of the workshops and the subsequent advice of the NSC was that at present there was no case for population screening for any of these late onset genetic diseases, however this will be kept under review.
Work on common datasets is being developed as part of the development of the National Cancer Dataset.